GAMECHANGER AUDIO Plasma Rack Distortion Effect Processor

GAMECHANGER AUDIO Plasma Rack Overview

Harness the primal power of lightning in a bottle with the Plasma Rack from Gamechanger Audio, a unique analog distortion processor with ring mod, saturation, and gating capabilities. By converting your input signals into high-voltage xenon tube discharges, and then converting them back into signals, you get a distortion sound like no other.

By modulating the xenon discharge, you can achieve tremolo effects, controlled from a dedicated Tremolo section. Use the intuitive yet powerful front-panel controls to add everything from subtle overtones and harmonics to massive walls of distortion akin to a bitcrusher. Comprehensive I/O provides up to three independent FX loops, balanced and unbalanced I/O, digital MIDI control of all parameters, and expression pedal input. And you can even connect a second unit to your Plasma Rack for immersive stereo processing. The Plasma Rack includes a power cable.

Three Vital Controls

• Gain: Adjust input levels for different pickup types or sound sources to avoid signal clipping and to achieve balance between wet and dry signal levels.
• Voltage: This knob adjusts the amount of power supplied to the plasma tube. At lower Voltage settings, the amount of signal necessary to create a discharge is higher, resulting in a more dynamic, responsive sound. At higher voltages, the tube becomes more reactive to all signal levels, resulting in more saturation, compression, and sustain and less pronounced gating
• Blend: Lets you adjust the mix of wet and dry signals (i.e. the fully processed and unprocessed signals).

A Distinctive, Singular Analog Distortion Sound

The harmonic artifacts, created as a byproduct of the high-voltage discharge are uncommon in traditional signal amplification, and therefore plasma distortion is unlike anything you have heard before. The Plasma Rack produces a large amount of nonlinear harmonic saturation that causes extremely rich and responsive attacks and brings out screeching sharp overtones and harmonics.

The way the plasma tube reacts with different instruments and sound sources is quite unique. The scope of distortion intensity goes from sputtery broken sounds to full saturation and sustain all the way to totally oversaturated tones. The level of distortion is controlled with Input Gain and Voltage knobs. The Oversaturate mode overloads the Plasma tube and enhances upper harmonics and overtones.

Natural Noise Gate and Clean Gate

When the input level drops below the plasma lamp's voltage threshold, the electrical discharge within the gas-filled tube is interrupted. This creates a gating effect, which is unique to the plasma distortion and is a huge part of its flavor. The extremely fast gate creates the sputtering sounds with each attack and decay/release of a sound and strong contrasts between sounds, allowing it to work very well with beats and drum tracks.

The gating effects interacts with the input gain and Voltage setting. The Sustain mode allows you to prolong the sustain when using low-voltage (high-gate-threshold) settings. Clean Gate applies the special plasma gating to the dry signal even if the distorted wet signal is not mixed in. This allows you to apply the same sputtering gate sounds as a texture without distorting the signal, a useful effect for wide range of applications such as crushing drums, removing sustain from cymbals, or adding a flickering quality to melodic lines.

Tremolo and Ring Modulation

• Dedicated tremolo section, which affects dry and wet signals in or out of phase
• Tremolo is achieved by modulating the plasma tube
• High end of tremolo speed allows for ring modulation effects
• Tremolo rate and modulation frequency can be controlled via MIDI CC or an expression pedal
• Envelope follower allows control of tremolo and ring-modulation depth with input level
• Tremolo section interacts with Clean Gate effect, allowing flickering plasma gate to be applied to the clean sound at the set Tremolo rate

Signal Routing

• Balanced XLR and unbalanced 1/4" TRS output
• Balanced combo XLR-1/4" line and unbalanced Hi-Z 1/4" inputs
• 3 x FX loop with three 1/4" sends and three 1/4" returns
• MIDI 5-pin DIN input, through, and output
• 1/4" TRS expression pedal input

Workflow

The Plasma Rack signal processing is fully analog, but the parameters can be digitally controlled. It has full MIDI implementation and each parameter can be controlled with MIDI CC and PC messages. The rack has 8 user preset slots plus a default boot-up preset and settings. The expression pedal input can be rerouted to any parameter and saved on a global or preset basis.

EAN: 750258555196